Wednesday, December 28, 2016

The hamstring injury that took Jeremy Lin out of the game against the Charlotte Hornets isn’t the exact same injury that made him miss over a month of basketball not too long ago. It doesn’t mean there’s any reason for the Brooklyn Nets to be optimistic.

What we do know is what general manager Sean Marks said: The injury isn’t as severe as last time, and isn’t in the same place as the previous hamstring injury, although it’s still his left leg. Besides that? Nothing, as usual. Some intelligence agencies don’t keep secrets as well as the Nets guard their player’s’ injury status.

For now, the only official word is that Lin won’t be travelling with the Nets on their two game road trip, facing the Chicago Bulls (about to begin in less than an hour at the time of his post being published) and Washington Wizards. This will be followed by a stretch of six games in 11 days, five of them at home. Whether Lin comes back by the middle of January or this is going to be another long wait for their point guard is impossible to tell.

Marks did mentions this is an opportunity for other players to get some minutes: Spencer Dinwiddie, who has 12.3 minutes a night in 7 games; Caris LeVert with 14.2 minutes per game in 10 minutes a night; and the hero of the moment, Randy Foye, who has 20.1 minutes per game so far this season through 20 games. Obviously Isaiah Whitehead will get his minutes up again and Sean Kilpatrick will spend time as the ball handler.

All the Nets, their fans and Lin fans can do is hope his absence isn’t going to be as long as the previous one. But if the Nets were extremely cautious with his first return, who knows what’s going to happen this time. It won’t be surprising if they take it even a step further in terms of being overprotective.